Ethics Heroes

Ethics Hero: Twitter

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

twitter4

Ethics Alarms has honored some unlikely people as Ethics Heroes—Bill Clinton, Bill Maher, and Terry McAuliffe, for example. Twitter nabbing the distinction may be a record for cognitive dissonance, though. It is an unethical company, with a platform that does more damage than good. And yet…

Twitter announced that it was expanding its private information policy to forbid posting the ” media of private individuals without the permission of the person(s) depicted.“

Good.

Not that this policy is remotely possible to enforce; it isn’t. “When we are notified by individuals depicted, or by an authorized representative, that they did not consent to having their private image or video shared, we will remove it,” Twitter explains. “This policy is not applicable to media featuring public figures or individuals when media and accompanying tweet text are shared in the public interest or add value to public discourse.”

Yes, the policy goes well beyond any legal restrictions: that’s what makes it ethical rather than compliant. What is ethically admirable about the rule is that it calls attention to an ethical violation so common that few think it is a violation at all. When I allow a friend to take a photo of me, that is consent for that friend to make and have a copy of my likeness. It is not consent for my likeness to be circulated to the world on social media, included in facial recognition databases, be manipulated digitally to embarrass or humiliate me, or any other purpose. No law will help me claim that I did not consent to circulation of my likeness, which is why Naked Teachers have a problem. The law assumes that such use can and should be anticipated when I let myself be photographed. That, however, is a legal fiction. I have seen, online, photos of me when I wasn’t aware that I was in the picture. I hate photos of me.

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The New York Times Has An Outbreak Of Integrity In The Midst Of Its Progressive Bias Fever!

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

books

The Times has compiled its list of the “best books of the last 125 years” as part of the celebration of the 125th anniversary of its Book Review Sunday supplement. Readers are invited to vote for their favorite on the list of twenty-five.

Here is the list:

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A Rittenhouse Verdict Inventory Of Ethics Heroes, Dunces, Villains And Fools, Part I: Not Many Heroes

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

We should condition ourselves to cherish those public events that lure so many into definitively exposing their character, values and acumen for all to see. The Jacob Blake shooting, the subsequent demonstration and rioting, and the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, all intertwined, constituted such opportunities.

There are very few organizations, publications and individuals who will leave the stage in this annoying act in The Great Stupid drama deserving the designation of Ethics Hero. Rittenhouse certainly doesn’t, and thus the misguided pundits, politicians and others calling him that are dolts. He might be called brave, but bravery without good judgment, skill and experience too often leads to disaster, as it did in this tragedy.

Among the easily identified heroes are, first by several laps, the jury. I thought it was possible that, like the Chauvin jury, the twelve citizens might yield to the unethical public pressure being placed on them and refuse to see the reasonable doubt that made a conviction of Rittenhouse unjust as a matter of law, once the non-felony charges were dismissed. They didn’t yield, and delivered the fair and correct verdict despite irresponsible statements by elected officials who should know better, a less than sterling performance by Rittenhouse’s defense, credible threats of rioting in their community if they refused to follow the Black Lives Matter/Antifa script, and legitimate concerns about their own safety. Continue reading →

Did A Defendant’s Lawyer In The Arbery Trial “Cross A Line”?

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Nothing thrills the soul of this ethicist more than a terrific legal ethics controversy leaping off the page in his morning newspaper on a Saturday morning. Better still, it involved, not the Kyle Rittenhouse trial but that other trial, the one really involving racist vigilantes—the trial of the three white men who shot black jogger Ahmaud Arbery as they attempted to make a “citizen’s arrest.”

Kevin Gough, the lawyer who represents William Bryan, one of the three men accused of murdering Arbery, asked Judge Timothy R. Walmsley to ban “high-profile members of the African American community” from the Brunswick, Georgia courtroom. The lawyer argued that the presence of the Rev. Al Sharpton at the trial last week could be “intimidating” to jurors. “We don’t want any more Black pastors coming in here,” Gough said.

The New York Times this morning headlined its story in the print edition “Cantankerous Lawyer At Arbery Trial Crossed Over A Line, Critics Say.” (The online edition’s version is bit more restrained: “Lawyer for Man Accused of Killing Ahmaud Arbery Draws Scrutiny.”) Of course, all lawyers for defendants in high-profile cases draw scrutiny. Fake news!) Interestingly but hardly surprisingly, the Times print headline is misleading. What “critics” say Gough crossed a line? Well, that would be Al Sharpton and another black pastor. The word “critics” implies objective observors who are disinterested parties. But that’s the Times these days. Sad, really.

Then the Times spends the rest of the piece, 21 paragraphs worth, telling readers what a loose cannon Gough is. Does the article ever bother to explain the legal, ethical and factual justifications for Gough’s request? Not at all. That’s not just sad, that’s journalism malpractice. Incompetence or deliberate disinformation? It’s Hanlon’s Razor time!

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Ethics Pre-Daylight Losing Time Fallback, 11/6/202: So?…Go!…Oops! And More

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

Fall back

At this point in U.S. history, there is no justification whatsoever for not having daylight savings time year-round. The failure of Congress to kill Ben Franklin’s anachronistic brainstorm is pure cowardice and incompetence.

1. So? The NRA Foundation has twice paid attorney David Kopel, a Second Amendment activist, to write pro-gun rights amicus briefs in Supreme Court cases, according to a hacked document released last week. Since 2019, Kopel has submitted two briefs backing an NRA affiliate in cases before the court, including one involving New York’s ban on carrying licensed guns in public. The briefs did not disclose the source of funding, which is being condemned as unethical by the news media and the usual NRA bashers. “Attorneys who author these briefs must disclose whether they’ve taken money from either side to deliver a filing,” one source says.

Well, first of all, an amicus brief succeeds or fails based on its arguments, and who writes it or funds it should be irrelevant. This would be, at worst, a technical violation. However, the applicable rule in the SCOTUS amicus brief memo does not support the description above. “Rule 37.6 Disclosures” states,

“The first footnote on the first page of text of an amicus brief must include certain disclosures concerning contributions to the brief….It should indicate whether counsel for a party authored the brief in whole or in part and whether such counsel or a party made a monetary contribution intended to fund the preparation or submission of the brief. It should also identify every person other than the amicus, its members or counsel, who made such a monetary contribution; the Clerk’s Office views it as better practice to state explicitly that no such contributions were made if this is in fact true.”

This is astoundingly sloppy drafting, especially for the Supreme Court. “Must” and “should” are terms of art. “Must,” like “shall,” means some action is mandatory; “should” means that something is best practice, but not absolutely required. When two “shoulds” follow a “must,” it is impossible to determine what’s mandatory and what isn’t.

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Ethics Hero: Defeated Virginia Gubernatorial Candidate Terry McAuliffe (D)

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Terry M

Well, that was unexpected!

After McAuliffe made an appearance before the already deflating crowd of supporters and staffers on Election Night, only acknowledging the ominous news of a persistent Youngkin advantage by saying that “every vote” should be counted, the news media assumed that the close Hillary Clinton ally was planning a long battle over a close result if he lost the election. “His speech was notable for what he didn’t say,” one commentator said at about 10 pm. But by the early hours of the morning all outlets had declared Glenn Youngkin, the Republican who McAuliffe’s campaign had tried to brand as a racist and a Donald Trump clone, was the upset winner of the governor’s race, with not enough uncounted votes available to give McAuliffe the win he once assumed was “in the bag.”

McAuliffe defied expectations by conceding, quickly and graciously, the old fashioned way. His statement, issued early on in the morning after what must have been a crushing defeat, read,

“While last night we came up short, I am proud that we spent this campaign fighting for the values we so deeply believe in. We must protect Virginia’s great public schools and invest in our students. We must protect affordable health care coverage, raise the minimum wage faster, and expand paid leave so working families have a fighting shot. We must protect voting rights, protect a woman’s right to choose, and, above all else, we must protect our democracy. While there will be setbacks along the way, I am confident that the long term path of Virginia is toward inclusion, openness and tolerance for all.

“Congratulations to Governor-Elect Glenn Youngkin on his victory. I hope Virginians will join me in wishing the best to him and his family.“I would like to thank my wife Dorothy, my family, and my incredible campaign team for their tireless efforts and dedication over these past eleven months. And to all of my supporters across Virginia who knocked on millions of doors, made countless phone calls, and talked to their family, friends and neighbors: I am eternally grateful that you joined me on this journey to move Virginia forward.

“Serving as Virginia’s 72nd governor was the highest honor of my life, and I will never stop fighting to make our Commonwealth stronger and brighter for all.”

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Oh, Fine: Now I Have To Revise My Harvard Reunion Boycott Letter…

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

MacBeth in Stride

…by adding yet another reason for my absence. Harvard is practicing straight-up segregation. It really is. But it’s OK, see, because only non-black people are being discriminated against. This is the quality of reasoning at Harvard in the 21st Century.

“Macbeth in Stride” is currently being performed by the American Repertory Theater at Harvard University’s Loeb Drama Center, near Harvard Square. This adaptation of the Shakespeare tragedy includes modern music and a version of Lady Macbeth as an “ambitious black woman” to elevate “black female power, femininity, and desire.” <YAWN!> When I see Orson Welles in Hell, remind me to thank him for inflicting on the culture an endless parade of Shakespeare updates with lazy and facile political metaphors, all executed by adapters and directors less talented than he was.

But I digress. For the reason I will have to add to my report of protest is this: Harvard’s major theater on campus has decided that we white folk aren’t welcome to one performance. From the show’s webpage,

“We have designated this performance to be an exclusive space for Black-identifying audience members. For our non-Black allies, we appreciate your support in making this a completely Black-identifying evening. We invite you to join us at another performance during the run.“

The production is under the auspices of Harvard’s theater department, and the race-segregated performance is on campus, in a university building and held under the college’s banner. This astounding example of direct racial bias must have been approved by Harvard itself.

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Ethics Hero: Prof. Jonathan Turley (And The Indefensible Whitewash Of The Shooting Of Ashli Babbitt)

/ Jack Marshall / 57 Comments

michael-byrd-ashli-babbitt

Ethics Alarms already noted Jonathan Turley’s accurate and searing condemnation of the outrageous and sinister double standard applied to Lt. Michael Byrd, the Capitol Police officer who shot and killed Ashli Babbitt on January 6. Incredibly, the blatantly partisan wound on the illusion of our justice system’s integrity got worse after Turley’s first post on the topic. The investigation of the mind-meltingly stupid riot concluded that it was not coordinated, was not incited by Donald Trump, and was not an “insurrection,” just as any objective and reasonably informed citizen could have figured out by themselves. Then Byrd, whose identity had been shielded from the public (and oddly unrevealed by the mainstream media, who could have discovered and published it if they were still practicing journalism), gave a nauseating NBC interview in which he pronounced himself a hero, made the absurd claim that he had saved untold lives by shooting an unarmed woman, and, most significantly, revealed that he had no legal basis to use deadly force. (He also revealed himself to be unfit to be trusted with a weapon.)

This prompted Turley to write his second attack on the politicized cover-up. Turley, despite the names he is called by the aspiring totalitarians of the Far Left and the Trump-Deranged, is a Democrat and a lifetime liberal. Because of what can only be an abundance of character, he has not had his values warped by being marinated in the campus culture of his typically uber-woke institution, George Washington University. Not had he shied away from disparaging the illiberal and anit-Democratic antics of the Axis of Unethical Conduct (“the resistance,” Democrats and the mainstream media) during their four-plus year effort to destroy Donald Trump. He has been remarkably consistent, legally accurate, fair, and right in this, and has paid the price.

In the Virtues, Values and Duties page here (Have you ever visited? You should you know…) I list what I call “The Seven Enabling Virtues.” These are character traits that often are necessary to allow us to be ethical:

  1. COURAGE
  2. FORTITUDE
  3. VALOR
  4. SACRIFICE
  5. HONOR
  6. HUMILITY
  7. FORGIVENESS

Turley annoys me sometimes with his professorial reserve (developments that should send American screaming into the streets are just “troubling” or “problematical” in his typical lexicon), but he is well-girded in all of the seven. Every time he goes against the prevailing progressive narrative, he is called a Trumpist, a phony, a Nazi, and worse. His integrity and dedication to truth-telling has undoubtedly cost him speaking gigs, book sales and TV interviews on any network but Fox. Yet Turley has not backed down.

Turley’s recent article in The Hill regarding the Babbitt shooting is superb.

Highlights:

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Ethics Hero: UConn Student Isadore Johnson

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Isadore Johnson

There is hope.

The University of Connecticut has had a free speech-hostile policy since 2017. It reads in part,

“The University of Connecticut is permitted to, and will, limit expression in order to protect public safety and the rights of others.This includes expression that is defamatory, threatening, or invades individual privacy. Protected speech may also be reasonably regulated as to the time, place, and manner of the expression.”

It needs to go, and senior Isadore Johnson, a founder of UConn’s Students for Liberty (SFL) chapter wants to help get rid of it. Speaking with the libertarian magazine “Reason,” he told writer Ella Lubell.

“I think many universities, including UConn, take it for granted that students appreciate the protections and values of open discourse and discussion. Many students do not, and it is incumbent on the university to clarify and explain such values so students know what rights are protected. The right to argue vigorously and sometimes offensively is part of our civic culture, and students ought not be protected against that.”

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Ethics Hero: Verda Tetteh

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Here I am, always desperately searching for positive ethics stories, and there was a great one sitting for two months in my “Read This” file…

Verda Tetteh, a 17-year-old Fitchburg, Massachusetts high school senior, was already accepted into Harvard (poor kid!) which is going to pay her tuition, room and board. She also had qualified her other scholarships that would cover her college expenses. Her guidance counselor still urged her to go for another one, the $40,000 local award called “The General Excellence Prize.” Every year the prize goes to one male and one female student selected by a committee of teachers, administrators and guidance counselors

Verda applied to shut him up, essentially, assuming she would never win. But she did. She found out at her graduation ceremony on June 4, when the assistant principal of Fitchburg High School announced to the audience that she was the winner. Surprised, she accepted the award, thought hard as she walked away, then turned and walked back to the podium.

“I am so very grateful for this, but I also know that I am not the one who needs this the most,” Verda said, her voice shaky. “I would be so very grateful if administration would consider giving the General Excellence scholarship to someone who is going into community college.”

Her fellow classmates and the crowd rose to give her a standing ovation.

Ethics Hero.

Wow.